Warren admits listing herself as Native American at Harvard, Penn

posted at 12:41 pm on May 31, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Looks like the stonewalling strategy has failed for Elizabeth Warren, and now more questions about her honesty and integrity will arise. The Boston Globe reports today that Warren has reversed her earlier position of ignorance on her listing as a Native American, admitting that she listed herself at both Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania after being hired:

Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren acknowledged for the first time late Wednesday night that she told Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania that she was Native American, but she continued to insist that race played no role in her recruitment.

“At some point after I was hired by them, I . . . provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard,’’ she said in a statement issued by her campaign. “My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I’m proud of it and I have been open about it.’’

Warren’s statement is her first acknowledgment that she identified herself as Native American to the Ivy League schools. While she has said she identified herself as a minority in a legal directory, she has carefully avoided any suggestion during the last month that she took further actions to promote her purported heritage.

When the issue first surfaced last month, Warren said she only learned Harvard was claiming her as a minority when she read it in the Boston Herald.

Warren’s new statement came after the Globe asked her campaign about documents it obtained Wednesday from Harvard’s library showing that the university’s law school began reporting a Native American female professor in federal statistics for the 1992-93 school year, the first year Warren worked at Harvard, as a visiting professor.

Earlier, I wrote that having the Boston Globe on the case was bad news for Warren. The campaign could no longer ignore the story as an artifact of the Boston Herald, which first started asking questions about Warren’s long-time identification as a Native American at Harvard, and Harvard Law’s promotion of the pale Warren as their sole “woman of color” on the faculty. When the Globe began digging up the contradictions, Warren had no option but to respond to it.

The attention to Warren’s claims in the Globe isn’t restricted to the news section, either. Local columnist Brian McGrory blasted Warren for pretending that a claim to an employer of membership in a protected EEOC class was only for social interaction. This issue may not be as newsworthy as taxes and economic policy, but integrity matters in public officials — and McGrory writes that this is entirely about integrity:

Of course, the stubbornly mediocre economy, fair taxes, the partisan rift that is swallowing Washington whole, these are all critical issues that should be discussed and debated almost every day in this US Senate campaign.

But let’s not ever lose sight of one true thing in this or any other political race: The most important issues are the candidates themselves, and more specifically, their integrity, credibility, and authenticity.

Which is why Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee ancestry, almost certainly declared on federal forms by Warren herself and used by a pair of Ivy League universities to tout their diversity efforts, all without an ounce of proof that she has a drop of Indian blood flowing through her veins, matters. It matters a great deal.

Speaking as adults here, the elephant in the room is whether Warren wrongly claimed minority status to improve her prospects for being hired to teach at Harvard Law School, and before that, the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The more obvious question might even be, why else would she have done it? The public utterances of this uncommonly accomplished and otherwise eloquent candidate have so far ranged from lunacy to comedy, highlighted by her explanation about wanting to “meet others like me” and her recollection of an aunt describing her grandfather’s “high cheekbones.”

Now that Warren has admitted to telling a lie about how she got listed at both Harvard and Pennsylvania, the integrity questions will only intensify. At some point, Massachusetts Democrats will start calling Vicki Kennedy for the Toricelli option.

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Not possible. You can’t have integrity and be in the Democrat Party. Artur Davis developed some integrity and was therefore forced to declare that he is no a Republican. It’s an oil and water kind of thing. Oxymoronic.

Not possible. You can’t have integrity and be in the Democrat Party. Artur Davis developed some integrity and was therefore forced to declare that he is no a Republican. It’s an oil and water kind of thing. Oxymoronic.

Is there a single person of integrity left in the Democratic Party?
Allendundit on May 31, 2012 at 3:11 PM

Not possible. You can’t have integrity and be in the Democrat Party. Artur Davis developed some integrity and was therefore forced to declare that he is no a Republican. It’s an oil and water kind of thing. Oxymoronic.

trapeze on May 31, 2012 at 3:53 PM

If you stray, you get attacked, see Cory Booker. The socialists are firmly in control of the Demonrats now.

But it’s true. You simply cannot have integrity and be a Democrat. They are polar opposites. Sure there are some Republicans without integrity but it’s not a Republican party plank or something that you have to check your decency and morality at the door.

But it’s true. You simply cannot have integrity and be a Democrat. They are polar opposites. Sure there are some Republicans without integrity but it’s not a Republican party plank or something that you have to check your decency and morality at the door.

trapeze on May 31, 2012 at 4:21 PM

Yup – the ends justify the means – especially in the name of power. As dipsh!t Bloomberg in NY has just proved.

“At some point after I was hired by them, I . . . provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard,’’ she said in a statement issued by her campaign.

Date check….

Squaw Elizabeth Warren listed herself as a Native American in the 1986-1987 law directory.

She began working at University of Pennsylvania in 1987.

She was a Visiting Professor at Harvard beginning in 1992.

Assuming it took some time to print the law directory back in those pre-web days, Squaw Warren must have found and publicly declared her Cherokee roots BEFORE she was hired by either the University of Pennsylvania or Harvard.

Could somebody please hand Squaw Warren a calendar?

Her web of obvious lies is getting really embarrassing, even by Massachusetts standards.

This is an organization that’s promoted to America a presidential candidate whose publisher represented his birthplace as Kenya for fully 17 years; a Connecticut senatorial candidate who claimed to have served in the US military in Vietnam; and now a Massachusetts candidate who claims inside knowledge of Native American recipes based on heritage.

Democrats and leftists…please!

Allendundit on May 31, 2012 at 3:11 PM

Nope.

And you left several lying Democrats off of your list.

Let’s not forget these members of the Democrat Hall of Shame:

Bill Clinton – “depends what the meaning of the word is is”

Al Gore – who invented the internet and made a fortune on the global warming fraud he started.

John Edwards – who claimed his campaign staffer was the father of his love child

John Kerry – who told tall tales about his time in Vietnam and was exposed by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Former Governor John Corzine – who doesn’t know where all that money went.

Golly gee! You would think that the other half of the U.S. voters would have figured out by now why they should never ever vote for a Democrat!